Pages

Friday, February 12, 2010

The Best Idea Ever – Friday Flash Fiction

The Best Idea Ever

You’ve all heard this before, but for the novitiates among you, let me recap. I had this idea for a story. A story beyond any story that’s ever been told or written or conceived. The most fabulous concept ever. It would break hearts and alter the course of nations. The most mind-blowing apocalyptic meaningful tome ever written. The most incredible piece of fiction ever set to paper. The Best. Idea. Ever.

But then, you’ll remember, my friend stole it.

You see, I was so excited about it that I started blabbing everywhere about it—online, in coffee shops, in my writing groups, on my blog—I mean, how could I not? This is The Best Idea Ever. People had to know. I mean, if you really follow what I wanted to lay out in my book, it would have completely blown your mind. I’m talking seizures. Cognitive dismemberment.

Sigh. Let’s just say that blabbing about The Best Idea Ever was NOT “The Best Idea Ever.”

So, I’m sitting there, just reading the online news, checking out book reviews and stuff, and there It is. Number One Bestseller. By Idea Stealer Backstabber. How did I miss this? Heck—I hadn’t really written that much of it so far—I’m a busy guy. But my “friend” really screwed me. Hard.

Day by day I watched the world digest this novel novel, translated into every language. Classes rebelled. Schools rioted. Armies formed and then disbanded. Governments collapsed. World leaders fell. Whole societies altered their way of life. All due to MY IDEA. People raged against the old system. I had exposed it all, torn it out by its foundations. I mean—let’s get real here—my “former friend” exposed it all. Sales of all other books dropped to virtually nothing. Soon, my ex-friend’s book became the only book available. Contests were held to see who could memorize every line, every word, and recite it non-stop. Pageants judged who could look and act most like the recommendations in The Best Idea Ever.

Then it got out of hand.

Every street and billboard exploded with posters about The Best Idea Ever. Every TV show raged about how they were more “in line” with The Best Idea Ever than the others. I had created a world of perfect people, in perfect harmony. I couldn’t stand it any more. I had to act. I couldn’t let my treacherous friend reap all the benefits. So I went to my lawyer, filed a lawsuit, and during the “Trial of the Ages,” produced irrefutable documents which dated the origin of The Best Idea Ever to my account. My diabolical friend was exposed.

Oops.

Well, you see, there’s a good deal of “faith” involved in The Best Idea Ever. My unfortunate friend was almost a god, a gazillionaire, a world leader, and the most influential person on the planet. Except for this one small detail, mankind had the prophet they had searched for for millennia. My unfriendly friend had plagiarized me, no doubt about it. Not all the details of the book, not the implementation of my idea, just the core concepts. Okay, fine, I give my opportunistic friend credit for writing and publishing and promoting it blah blah blah. But still, it was my idea. My Best Idea Ever.

You see, without faith, there is no belief. I mean that’s right on Page Five for crying out loud!

Anyways, The Best Idea Ever had solved all the world’s problems, and we lived in a utopia beyond reproach. But now, people started to doubt The Best Idea Ever. Question it. If the author had cheated, how could they believe one iota of information in it? I mean, come on, nothing my dubious friend did invalidated the actual core idea, but...

Damn.

Things fell apart like snowman in the burning desert. Hunger. Fighting. Wars. Disease. Death. All because I had to open my mouth ONCE AGAIN and BLAB. Why couldn’t I have just handled this quietly? Why did anyone have to get hurt? Now, you can argue that “maybe my idea wasn’t that good” because it collapsed so easily, but imagine if my unfortunate friend had died instead of being sued! My would-be-dead friend would be a martyr, and those teachings would live on forever. But now, the book burnings, the public humiliation, I don’t know.

We had come so close. And lost it all.

I guess the moral of all this is that if you have a great idea, and by some stupid reason you blab it, and then someone runs with your idea and changes the world, then just go ahead and kill that person. Or just forget it. You’ll sleep better, they’ll live on either way, and everyone will be happy.

Thanks for listening. Sorry for all that crap I put the world through. I hope someday you can forgive me. Anyways I just wanted to tell everyone that I’ve come up with the sequel, The Even Better Best Idea Ever, and I’m busy writing it.

15 comments:

I like thinking about how I can turn sub-1000-word ideas into novels. In this case, I can see "my friend" as a love interest who got tired of the narrator putzing around with his idea and writes it herself. There are so many things I could do with this.

Yeah, I can definitely see the love interest angle. I can also see the "friend" as someone who realized the brilliance of the idea and decided that the narrator would never do anything with it. So they ran with it instead. Kind of like a betrayal sort of thing.